AL

I don't think he was implying anything wrong with the Japanese in general, just that they had their hands in quite a bit of atrocities during WW2. The Rape of Nanking, the Bataan Death March, etc. "Sherman Carpets" would be the least of these.

I'd vote Republican if they actually stood for what they claim ostensibly to stand for: small efficient government, low taxes, and fiscal conservatism. Instead, they've come to stand for big military spending, ultra-nationalism ("if you're not with us, you're against us") and right-wing fundamentalist values. I don't like Democrats either (I consider myself a moderate Libertarian), but Kerry is the lesser of two evils. A president with no backbone is a president that will bend to the will of the people, which could be a good thing. I'd take that over a president whose administration created the USAPATRIOT Act and supports a constitutional amendment to ban gay-marriage (after prohibition, it would be the second amendment to take away a freedom rather than grant one), and yet brags about "defending freedoms."

It seems you don't understand the concept of a theory as used by scientists. Do not confuse it with the colloquial use of the word theory, which means "hypothesis" or "conjecture." In science, a theory is not a hypothesis or conjecture; it is a well-substantiated abstraction intended to represent the reality of the particular scientific phenomenon in question. Theory in science is as opposed to empiricism, which is observing the actual phenomenon as opposed to its abstraction. An analogy would be learning to play the guitar. When you start out learning the techniques and how to read music, you are learning guitar theory. This is as opposed to actually playing the guitar, which would be analogous to empiricism (theory vs. practice). Theory in this case does not mean "guess," because you are not "guessing" how to play the guitar. Evolution has been proven wrong? By who? Michael Behe and his ridiculous notion of "irreducible complexity," which is basically "intelligent design" in another guise? And Big Bang is not a blind guess. I am not aware of any other theory out there that does a better job of explaining an expanding universe, cosmic microwave background, isotropy and the numerous other things Big Bang explains. Religion is not science, if that's what you were getting at. I'm sure you can learn this stuff at Bob Jones University, but there's a reason why it's not an accredited institution. OMG A CREATOR!!!1 U R TEH CREATIONIST!!!1 You seem to be unaware of the logical fallacy of petitio principii. If you assume the universe was created, then you have already presupposed the existence of a creator. You are using a circular argument for creationism.

It is nonsense because there is no such thing as a "real number that is closest to 1" and not equal to it. It has to do with a property of the real numbers called Completeness. Suppose there is a number that is "closest" to 1 but not equal to it. We'll call it x. Since x is "closest" to 1, this implies that there is no such number y that is between x and 1 so that x < y < 1. Now set y = (x+1)/2. Then we get that x < (x + 1)/2 < 1, which implies there IS a y such that x < y < 1. Contradiction. Thus there is no such thing as a "closest" number in the set of reals.

Looks like I got beaten to it while I was waiting for this account to activate.... But in any case blackjackal, you are not taking into account net entropy. Life is ordered, but how much energy was lost in the process of creating it? Everyday you eat and destroy another animal just to maintain your own life. Sustaining your own life increases net entropy. At the most fundamental level, autotrophic life is also less than 100% efficient. For instance, photosynthetic plants only use red light, out of all the other frequencies of sunlight. Non-red light is simply wasted by clorophyll -- thus increasing net entropy. There is a lot of lost energy going into life. You are not looking at the bigger picture. Evolution does not violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics; if it did, physicists and biologists would have done something about it long ago.